Dear Mr. Trump,
South Africa has taught us a lesson we all can learn.
In the early nineties, South Africa stood on the precipice of civil war. Oppressive racial violence and discrimination and competing economic systems converged to make civil war more likely than not.
South Africa’s white government released Nelson Mandela from prison. For 27 years, the government held him captive—as a political prisoner. Mandela went into prison a Marxist/communist, ready to violently overthrow the South African government.
Mandela came from prison ready to unify. To motivate national change, however, first required his change.
He changed. Those changes came in prison. But they did not come from prison. Prison did not change Mandela. Mandela changed Mandela. It was a choice. Of that, he stated: “As I walked out of the door toward the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew if I didn’t leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I’d still be in prison.” His prison was not simply the cell that held him. It was also a state of mind—an attitude of hatred and bitterness.
His choice to recognize his need to change turned an embittered heart into one with capacity to motivate national reconciliation and unity.
Amazingly, Mandela accomplished it. The national unity he obtained would not have occurred without first changing himself.
In America, conservatives and liberals war with each other in a winner take all struggle where the ends justify the means. Angry whites and blacks whip their respective camps into racial froth. Wealthy and poor contend over who is wrong or right: Labor or management. Atheists and believers toil for ideological turf. Extremists, both gay and straight, sow hatred. Each of us belongs to at least one of these American sub-groups. We are at war with each other on a dozen or more twisted fronts.
Where is our Mandela?
Who will be our Mandela?
Will we be fortunate enough, blessed enough, for our own Mandela to rise above pride and hate to change himself/herself so that we may follow?
306 electoral votes, counting Michigan, gives you the choice to be that Mandela.
Hatred and bitterness seem now to occupy your soul—or at least your speech. Do you have the strength to recognize it? Do you have the capacity to reconcile yourself with America? Are you powerful enough to release yourself from your own prison?
The answers to these question determine the fate of our Republic.
Mr. Mandela said this: “No one is born hating another person. . . . People learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart that its opposite.”
We need to learn to love again. It is the only thing that will change our embittered hearts into hearts with capacity to motivate national reconciliation and unity.
Sincerely,
David O. Leavitt
